Like a junkie, I made it home afterwards with my fingertips itching for a fix. My hands trembled all through the ride back home with mama and Toni. The car was a tomb, but once we made it home they exploded with charged words and cries that I just couldn't handle. I ran upstairs and locked myself in my room. I rested my forehead against the cool door, cringing at the fact that I probably should do something for Toni. But I was still too mad by our conversation.

She was crazy if she thought something wild and disruptive would bring me some form of release. From what? My life was on track, just like hers had been before this whole mess. Sadly for her, I was on mama and papa's side. This was a terrible thing and she couldn't convince me otherwise. On that, she was on her own. On everything else that was going to follow, I'd be there for her, of course.

I knew I wasn't being very nice right now, but like, I wasn't going to fail her either.

It was like with flight instructions, though. First you had to take care of your own oxygen mask before you could help anybody else with theirs. I locked my door and dropped my bag on the floor. The text books I'd been studying with at the car shop flopped out onto the floor. I stepped around them and opened my closet. All the way from the back I pulled out my secret box. I paper mached the heck out of it in middle grade so that it would look like a Florida scene, all colorful sunset and palm tree silhouettes. I sat on the floor with it and lifted the lid. The smells hit me like they always did, as though I was coming back to my church and it welcomed all my senses. I reached inside for the largest bloc I kept at the bottom and shook it out gently.

Art.

This was something I could only do in the dark, locked up from the outside world. I'd always liked to draw and paint, and my parents had been proud when my drawing won a county fair award in middle school. But before I got too excited about it, papa had said words that had stuck to me more than any prayer at Sunday church.

"Art is something to look at, not something to eat with."

He was right. I didn't want to be a starving artist. They didn't leave Venezuela to escape poverty and crime, only for me to die with a brush in my mouth instead of bread.

So art, drawing, painting or anything that I could do with my hands had become a secret hobby. A way to decompress with something that I was good at. I wasn't good enough to share with anybody and I didn't want to, anyway. This was my thing and my thing alone. I was already on edge every time the girls caught me doodling and started talking about it. I didn't want this to come out for people to ruin it with questions or criticism. And I didn't want papa and mama to know I'd kept at it for years, even though they had discouraged it. I didn't want them to think I disobeyed.

I was not going to become what Toni had become.

I opened the bloc and grabbed a piece of charcoal. My hand finally stopped shaking. The sunset filtering through the window cast shadows that I traced over the paper, with no rhyme or reason at first. The thing I loved the most about drawing was that the thoughts in my head always vanished, giving way to things that lurked under the surface. Things I otherwise couldn't tap. There were whole worlds and swathes of color and light in my mind that didn't exist in reality, that couldn't, unless I let them out. I escaped in them while my hand tried to replicate them. I stopped being Aurora Maria, she who had to get into a top local college and became Rory, she of the mighty pen. It gave me a thrill that life otherwise didn't have.

There was a knock on the door that made me jump half my height. The motion made me run the charcoal over the page, ruining what otherwise had turned out to be a cool depiction of a stormy sky.

I shoved the bloc and the box under my bed and jumped up. With my foot I scooted the bag and text books closer, to really make sure everything was hidden. Then as I was going to open the door I saw my blackened hands.

"Drat," I muttered. The knocks started again and I said, "One second!"

I looked around and grabbed an old t-shirt to wipe my hands with. Then I took a deep breath and opened the door.

"Were you watching porn in there or something?"

I should have been surprised, but ultimately I wasn't. This wouldn't be the first or last time Courtney showed up at my place with no invitation. She shouldered the door fully opened and jumped on my bed. She folded her legs beneath her and gave me a look as though I was the one out of place.

"Shit's tense down there, no pun intended. Did something happen?"

I sighed and banged my hip against the door to close it. "Well, I guess there's no point in hiding it. Eventually it'll be too obvious."

Courtney's eyebrows went up. "Are you pregnant?"

"What?" I whirled around from grabbing my desk chair so she could see just what effect her stupid question had on my face. "No, are you insane? I'm a virgin."

She threw her hands up. "Hey, y'all are so solemn that I figured it had to be something really dramatic, at least a step before a death."

I sat on my chair, annoyed that she'd somewhat guessed it on the first go.

"How did you know?" I asked her, but before I could backtrack at how the question came out, she pounced.

Literally. She fled from the bed and slammed her hands on the arm rests of my chair, much too close for comfort.

"Are you the next Virgin Mary?"

That wrenched a sudden laugh out of me. This was why, despite being so different, Lina and Courtney and I were friends. In our own ways, we had each other, even if that meant getting each other out of a funky mood.

"No, it's my sister."

She pulled away as one of her eyebrows pulled sky high. "She is the next Virgin Mary?"

"Pregnant, yes, but not from the Holy Spirit."

"Holy shit," she said. I put my finger on my lips because if mama heard such language coming out of my room I was going to get in trouble. Courtney sat down on my bed slowly. "Wow, and here I thought my news were kind of a big deal."

"What news?" I asked, now very interested in that. But she waved a hand at me.

"Wait, how did this happen? I thought your sister was a veritable saint."

I folded my arms and lifted my nose. "I guess I'm the actual Saint Martinez Fernandez, huh?"

That made her laugh. And point at my face.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked, definitely offended.

"You'll be named a saint the day I win an Oscar for best actress." The corner of her lips quirked into a smirk and she did a show of scanning me up and down. "You? You're worse than I am, you're just pretending otherwise."

My back prickled with something like a hot shiver.

"You're wrong. I'm good. But that's not the point here," I said, rolling my eyes so she wouldn't see how much her little joke had bothered me. "The point is that we were all wrong thinking Toni was a goody two shoes. Turns out she has a guy."

"No shit, it's not like she got knocked up by herself."

There was absolutely no way I'd make her drop the language, and though normally I'd try, today I was too tired.

"So now what?" she asked, and I shrugged. "Are your parents going to disown her?"

"What? No." I blinked at her as though I couldn't comprehend the picture that question painted. "I'm sure they're going to ground her and never let her live this down for as long as they're alive, but it's not like this is a telenovela, you know?"

She swung her legs as though she were at a park swing. "Sure could've fooled me."

"And me." I sighed, the understanding dawning on me that life in the Martinez Fernandez household was going to become a lot trickier to balance from now on. Toni was facing a tough battle in her body for the next few months, one that she nor I knew nothing about, and that was excluding the fight she was going to be facing against our parents. Who were now going to expect even more perfection from me.

I rubbed my temples and thought back on the last conversation with Mr. Davies. Even though I was nervous about my upcoming applications, if I'd been the one to get pregnant, I would've had to kiss my college future goodbye. That was not the kind of compelling story that a scholarship recipient made.

Oh God, what about Toni's college? Was she going to have to kiss it goodbye?

I hadn't thought of that until that point. I heard Courtney talking but suddenly I wanted somebody, no, I needed somebody to tell me that Toni was going to be okay. That her entire future was not derailed. Because if it was, that just showed that an unexpected plot twist could throw my life out of wrench too.

"Rory?"

I snapped back into focus. "Sorry, what?"

"I know that you have a lot going on right now so this is the least of your concerns," as she said this she cleared her throat. She looked serious. Whatever this was, it was important to her.

"Okay, I'm listening," I said.

"Well," Courtney started, her expression morphing into the same look a little kid got when they'd done something naughty. "Do you remember that huge crush you had on Ryan Romano?"

I shot up to my feet, crossed the room in one stride and grabbed her by the shoulders. "You did not tell anybody about it, did you?"

Her baby blues widened to impossible proportions. "I'd never fucking dare, you'd cut me."

"That's right." Once I was satisfied with her innocence I back tracked. "Then what is it?"

She squirmed to make herself comfortable again. "I was just wondering if you still have that crush."

My brow creased. Did I still have a crush on Ryan? He was one of the hottest guys I'd seen outside of a TV screen, for sure. And he was really nice. The kind of guy who was not pretentious and had a genuine smile for everybody who crossed his path. The fact that now that the golden baseball team of Metro High graduated last year and he was now the ace pitcher of the team added to his appeal. I'd love to date him. He looked like the kind of guy who would treat a girl well and also kiss well.

But if he ever asked me out I'd have to say no. I didn't have time. Getting into a relationship in high school was the height of idiocy. After graduation everybody went their own ways and met new people, what was the point?

So, yeah, while he could still make my knees knock when he said hi to me, that had to be it.

I shrugged. "Not really."

Courtney obviously didn't believe me.

"I don't believe you."

That made me laugh. "Something in your face told me as much. But trust me, I don't have time for boys."

Her lips did an upturn. "That's not exactly the same as being over a crush."

I waved my hand like she did earlier. "To me it's the same. What's this all about, anyway?"

Courtney pursed her lips and popped them. Then she did it again. I narrowed my eyes at her.

"Ryan asked me out."

You could hear a pin drop.

Okay, it wasn't like he and I were tight. Him asking me out didn't have high probability. And yes, I always figured that if that were to happen I'd toss my chocolate hair back and say it's not you, it's me. But in the privacy of my mind I admitted that I was stung. Very much so. I didn't base a significant portion of my identity on my looks or my ability to attract guys, but the fantasy was still there, in the back of my head. That someday someone would look at me and think, wow. I hated that deep down this contradicted the logical side of me, but ultimately this one was a lot stronger than my fantasy one.

This was fine. If Courtney completely removed Ryan out of the picture for me, she was doing me a favor.

I smirked.

"Well then, I guess Lexie Cooper better watch out. Her spot at the top of our school year's hierarchy's in trouble."

Her sigh of relief almost melted her on the spot. "Thank fuck. I didn't want to say yes to him until I got your blessing."

Which, wow, meant that she hadn't wanted to say no. Despite the fact that she knew I had a crush on him.

But the fact that she came by to talk about it was good. She was good. I seriously had no right to feel bothered about this.

And yet I was.

See? This was why I didn't get tangled with boys. They had an innate talent to muck up a sane girl's brain. I resolved right then and there that I was right and Courtney and Toni were wrong. Boys were unnecessary trouble and I henceforth swore off of them for the upcoming few years.

btw nothing wrong with being a virgin or not 🤷🏻‍♀️ it's your choice and if you're safe about it you're gucci. ain't nobody got time for judging.

so now the question is, is our petty queen Rory going to get tangled with ~boys?~